Nudity and Rape in Western Culture

Rape Culture, Misogyny and a Misguided Mayor

Social media has been abuzz with Mayor Tim Kee’s initial address regarding the death of Japanese native, Asami Nagakiya, who was found dead in the Queen’s Park Savannah while still clad in her carnival costume. His address encapsulated the very essence of our rape culture with brief highlights of his own personal views on Carnival and ‘wining’. …The worst of his utterances however, came when he stated that “women have the responsibility to ensure that they are not abused.” This, of course, is as ludicrous as telling someone that they are responsible for experiencing racism because they are colored, and in order to avoid racism, they should immediately take responsibility by no longer being colored.

There are tribes in the Amazon and Africa – you know, the ones we call primitive – that live in perpetual nakedness, yet rape is not an issue there. Why? Because for them, masculinity is not defined by violence, aggression,

Curator’s note: This writer raises some important questions about society’s connection between nakedness/nudity power and a rape culture that is worth exploring from a clothes free perspective. I encourage you to read the full post.

2 Comments

I am fed-up to my eye-balls with this victim-blaming–perpetrator-enabling crap, and yes, there is a LOT of work to be done. To be effective, I believe that it has to start in our religious institutions and places of worship, where “modesty”is very-frequently judged based on “state-of-dress”. Girls and women are told “Keep your necklines high and your hemlines low”, but boys and men aren’t taught to keep their hands to themselves and their penis in their own pants. They also aren’t taught that they are responsible for their actions. That MUST Change.

If “state-of-dress” was the basis for rape, our nudist resorts would be rape-cities, instead of being a safe-haven for all people, dressed or undressed. Even small children are safe at a nudist resort, which they aren’t in public.

I’ve had it up to here with all the simplistic idiot comments men make about how women aren’t naturally drawn to naturism, how it’s because they have self-confidence and body issues. I try to keep a cool and even temperature, but today I am not interested in that.

First of all, for a man to speak for why a woman does or doesn’t choose something is insane. How the hell could you possibly speak for someone else? Secondly, I can’t believe people think that women are biologically, evolutionarily predispositioned to not like being naked as much as men. Are you kidding me?

This article from the web speaks to one of the deeper issues: Rape Culture. And people’s unwillingness to shut up and read, listen and pay attention to stuff like this is what drives their naivite and furthers ignorant behavior, laws and practices.

RAPE CULTURE IS A REAL THING AND IT IS A REAL PROBLEM. (And it affects women and men, but in this context, given the idiotic remarks I’ve read about women and naturism, my rant is geared towards that).

What bothers me the most, is that I don’t even know how many people will actually take the time to read this piece. So many are so caught up in the lofty butterflies of their day that they choose to read other articles over this in their various social media feeds. They don’t choose to read this kind of stuff. And then, the simplistic remarks continue. And so do the behaviors.

I hate to keep ranting on it, but this piece got me thinking … this is another reason why all the incessant commentary on women’s bodies and the focus on the body (even aside from the fakers or those who choose to mix and match naturism with sexual content), this is the kind of stuff that made me think that naturists were just like all the rest. People could not seem to get over the body, and at the base, it made me think a lot of the things the author wrote… that men, “naturist” or not, really are just driven by that one body part. They just HAVE to comment on the body. “so beautiful, so sexy, so curvy, so this or that…” It reminded me of rape culture, because that’s the same dialogue that started when I was in such a situation. It started as “beautiful” and wound up taken.

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The author of Being Naked and Still Naked turns her attention from the joys of naturism in the summer sun to experiences of nudity in the colder seasons of the year. While attempting to remain warm, she muses about various aspects of naturism and nudity in general. As always, Sally Dali writes with ... More info →